The Matter of Lyrium
by Stormcrown201
Summary: Templars and ex-templars aren't exactly in the habit of sharing their lyrium kits. But with the woman who they're calling the Herald of Andraste having lost hers in the explosion at the Conclave, Cullen finds that he has to do exactly that. In the process, he learns that much more about she who is supposedly bound to save them all.


A week and two days after the explosion at the Conclave, Cullen enters the Haven Chantry and finds the woman they're calling the Herald of Andraste leaning against the wall. Even from a distance, she looks pale, distracted, and tired.

That, of course, is no surprise, given the situation. What is surprising is that she's only starting to look this way now; she had appeared perfectly fine every other time he had seen her, including just yesterday. But she is a stranger to him, and he doesn't feel comfortable with questioning her on this. He looks away from her and starts to move forward, but as he's passing by, he hears her armour clanking and turns to see her pushing off from the wall and approaching him.

Cullen stops where he stands and looks at her, keeping his face politely neutral. "Ser Joanna," he says when she reaches him, recalling her preference for her standard title rather than 'Herald'. Part of him finds it somewhat disconcerting to think that at one point, she could have been one of his subordinates in the Order, but he pays it no heed. "Is there something I can do for you?"

The Herald meets his gaze for a moment, but then uncharacteristically looks away. Her eyes dart here and there, never settling on anything; she shifts rather awkwardly on her feet, and one hand comes up to rub at her temple as if she's trying to fight off a headache. For a woman who's proven herself to be of singularly confident, even brazen, character in the short time that Cullen has known her, it's quite odd, but he's happy to wait for her to speak.

Eventually, she says, still without looking at him, "I… need a favour." Her low, drawling, somewhat masculine voice is also drained of its usual firmness and certainty, and Cullen feels a slight prickling of alarm, which only grows when she adds, "Can we speak in private?"

Rather than question her, he nods and says, "Of course," and leads her to a side room in the Chantry, trying not to assume anything about the favour that she requires as they go. Once they get inside, he shuts the door behind him and looks at her. Her arms are folded, like usual, but this time she seems to be hugging herself, as opposed to showing a sign of impatience or frustration. Her gaze continues to flick around the room and never meets his.

"What is it?" Cullen asks once the silence has gone on long enough.

She blows out a long breath through her nose and grimaces slightly. "I'm trying to work out how to phrase this," she admits. "Maker's cock, this is awkward…" His mouth twitches at her choice of profanity—for indeed, the woman is _vulgar_ ; she could have made some of his old colleagues back in Kinloch Hold and Kirkwall blush—but his concern is still growing, and he can't help but frown slightly as he observes her. Again, Cullen notes her pallor and the shadows under her eyes, and he wonders if they're due to sickness rather than stress, like he had previously assumed.

"Do you need to sit down?" he says eventually. "You look ill."

Ser Joanna lets out a short, somewhat ragged-sounding laugh. "That's the heart of it, actually," she says. "Well, sort of. I'm not sick, it's…" She sighs and finally meets his gaze again. Her green eyes are dull and slightly clouded, not vibrant and keen and full of life and zeal like they usually appear to be. "It's the lyrium."

As soon as she says that, Cullen realises what's going on, and he wants to smack himself for not having done so sooner. The lyrium, of _course_ , it's the lyrium. When was the last time she had the chance to imbibe? Given that she's been unconscious for most of the past week or, when awake, too busy to find the time, it must have been before the Conclave. He knows well enough that's a dangerous amount of time to go without taking lyrium—no wonder she's so pale, and so suddenly. "Ah," he says, very astutely, and a corner of her mouth twitches.

"The last time I took it was the day of the Conclave," she says, as if answering his thoughts. "But I've spent five days in total since then unconscious, and then I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I haven't had the time to think about it until I started feeling the pangs this morning. Except…" She sighs again. "I lost my kit in the explosion, you see."

So that's what this is about. Again, Cullen wishes he had thought of this earlier. "You wish to borrow mine?" he says.

"If it's possible," she says. "And, if I can keep borrowing it… I mean, I'll work on trying to get a new one, but the situation being what it is, that's not going to be easy. You understand?"

He nods again and says, "Yes, of course. I assume you want to borrow it right away?"

"Damn right I do," she tells him, rubbing her forehead again. "The more… _adverse_ effects of taking lyrium have never had much of a claim on me, but I still need to _take_ it. And the Inquisition needs me at my best."

"That it does," Cullen admits. He rolls his shoulders and continues to hold her gaze. "Come with me. I have my kit in my quarters."

"Lead the way," she says, and he opens the door, allows her to leave first, follows her out, and closes it behind him. From there, he takes the lead, heading back out of the Chantry and in the direction of his quarters while she follows beside him, quieter and more subdued than usual. The silence is more comfortable than Cullen had expected it to be, but he doesn't dwell on it.

In his quarters, Ser Joanna waits by the door while he looks for his kit. _Now_ , the silence is somewhat awkward; it's not as if he's in the habit of having people in here with him, especially not the Herald. But he ignores this, as well. In short order, he finds the kit and presents it to her.

"If you want me to leave…" he says, realising that she might prefer to do this in private and that his quarters are as good a place to do so as any.

"No, stay," she says quickly as she takes a seat, sets up the kit on the table next to it, and begins to prepare. "I don't mind talking while I do this. Reminds me of getting up every morning back in the Circle to imbibe with the other templars. A communal occasion—like breakfast." Her tone is light and cheerful, but also vaguely nostalgic, and Cullen can't help but share in the feeling. Those _were_ good moments, yes, when they would prepare and imbibe the lyrium while at the same time discussing their plans for the day and who should be doing what and which of the apprentices seemed likely to undergo the Harrowing and which might choose Tranquillity and so on. That first day he got out of the cage after Uldred's uprising in Kinloch Hold, or that after the Battle of the Gallows, when so many people were dead and the rest in a state of silent horror… he doesn't care to dwell on those.

He sits down and watches as she prepares the lyrium, her movements careful and practised. After a while, he says, "You said you served at Ostwick Circle?"

She nods. "I did. For the better part of nine years. It was a good place, very quiet. High success rates in the Harrowing. A small handful of minor accidents every month, never anything to panic about. The most exciting thing that ever happened until the end was two of my colleagues arguing over a bar tab. Rather boring, in all."

Cullen chuckles despite himself. "Forgive me for saying this, but I can't help but think that being somewhere so dull would have driven you mad."

She laughs. "Sometimes it was a bit _too_ quiet for my taste, yes. I always just had to remember that a quiet Circle was good for everyone and that the definition of excitement in the Circle often involves blood magic and abominations, and I'd be satisfied again. Granted, it was a lot of work keeping it quiet, especially after they got in a new Knight-Commander who wasn't so lenient with the mages… but even then, even as the war began, even as the other Circles fell apart, it was good."

"Until the end," he says quietly.

She nods. There's now a hardness in her eyes and the set of her strong jaw, a sign of bitter memories. "Until the end," she echoes. Her fingers tighten around her tools as she cuts and grinds up the herbs for the lyrium philtre. In many ways, he sees in it his own hardness after Kinloch Hold, but he also sees no hate, not for any specific group, and that relieves him.

Silence falls, and he watches her for a while as she finishes with the herbs and begins to prepare the philtre. Watching it, the old routine, makes a pang of desire to return to said routine flare up inside him, and he hastily looks away, trying to beat it down. That the lyrium is still within his system makes it easier, but he knows that all that means is the real trouble is ahead of him, lying in wait. He elects not to think about it, not right now. They have enough to deal with as it is.

Eventually, Cullen looks back at her and opts to ask another question. "Have you ever gone without for so long before?"

She shakes her head. "The only time I've ever approached anything like it was when Ostwick Circle fell. In all the madness, I didn't have the time to grab my kit, so I went for four days without imbibing before getting back to Ostwick. It didn't matter then—I knew it would be several days more before I started feeling the effects of it, and as soon as I arrived in Ostwick, I was posted to the Chantry and given a new kit. This was the first time I've been without long enough to really feel the pangs. Can't say I'm keen to repeat the experience."

He listens and nods slowly. "If you want, you can take the kit. It will save you the trouble of having to come back to my quarters every morning."

She glances up at him. "What? No. This is your kit. You can keep it. And it's no trouble at all, honestly." The way she says it makes Cullen wonder if she means anything by it, and he can feel his face burning slightly, but instead he smiles and concedes the point. She returns to her work.

By the time she's pouring the philtre into the bottle and adding the lyrium, he feels sufficiently emboldened to ask a third question. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened at Ostwick Circle?"

Her expression goes hard again as he anticipated, and for a moment, Cullen expects to be chided for asking, but instead, she bites her lip, takes a deep breath, and shifts her gaze to the window. "I don't like to talk about it," she admits curtly. "The short version is it was like Kirkwall, just on a smaller scale. A mage went mad and killed an innocent for the sake of his agenda—just one, mind you, not many. Both sides promptly went mad in response. And a fucking lot of innocent people got caught in the crossfire and _died_ as a result."

Cullen grimaces and nods sympathetically. He doesn't need to imagine what that must have been like; after all, he _lived_ it. "Were there many survivors?"

"Not all that many to begin with," she says bitterly. As she speaks, she finishes preparing the lyrium and starts swirling it around in the bottle from which she will imbibe it. "Even the youngest apprentices weren't spared. Maybe two or three dozen survivors or so on either side, at the most. And then…" Her fingers clench on the bottle. "Most of them were at the Conclave."

He sucks in his breath. "Andraste's blood," he murmurs. "Your friends?"

"My friends, my colleagues, my old charges," she says. There's a pause as she takes a deep breath, puts the bottle to her mouth, and throws down the contents in one gulp. Afterwards, as she lowers the bottle, she continues, "Some of the mages were my friends, too. And some of the templars, I'd known since training. One of them I met when I first started—when I was twelve. That was nearly sixteen years ago. Now they're all _gone_."

He shakes his head disbelievingly. How horrid for her to have lost so many people at once, under some of the worst circumstances at once—and some of them so abruptly, in one explosion that tore open the sky. "Did you have any family there?"

Her scowl turns into something resembling a snarl. "My sister, Lillian, a Chantry priestess. My brother, Gervase, a templar. My cousins, Helena and Isolda, Chantry priestesses. My cousin, Thomas, a templar. Two of my three siblings. All three of my uncle and aunt's children. And Thomas was like another brother."

For a long moment, Cullen has no idea what to say. How _does_ someone respond to something like that? Ultimately, he blurts out the first thing that comes into his head. "And Cassandra thought you murdered them all. The Chantry still thinks you murdered them all."

Ser Joanna laughs, but the sound is angry. "She did. They do. All because I was the only one 'lucky' enough to survive and because I ended up with this mark. Fucking idiots. Don't they _know_ what happens when people are accused of crimes they didn't commit? Ostwick Circle fell because of it. The mages and templars are at war partly because of it."

She takes a long breath, but it doesn't seem to calm her. "One good thing I can say about this. My friends, my brother, my cousin… at least I don't have to fear them joining the renegade templars anymore."

He grimaces again. "That's certainly one way of looking at it," he says delicately. "You're, uh, _luckier_ than others I know. Almost everyone has someone on one side of the conflict or other."

"So many fucking renegades," she says. The colour is back in her face, and he knows it's not just because her lyrium pangs have been satisfied. "People have told me that the renegade templars are a disgrace to the Order—and maybe they are—but there are _so fucking many_ of them. Is the problem with them… or is it with the Order that I am sworn to uphold and protect?"

There's a question that's kept him up at night for weeks, perhaps months on end. He still has yet to find an answer for it, though he'll wager that he's found the beginnings of one. "I wish I had an answer for you," he says unhappily. "But I don't know any more than you do."

The vehemence in her face seems to be fading, replaced by grief. She sits forward in her chair, joining her hands and resting them on her knees. "Somehow, I doubt anyone knows any more than we do. Anyone who says they do is likely lying or deluded. Or both. But if even a Circle as quiet as Ostwick could erupt in chaos and fall, with even the youngest not being spared the templars' blades or the mages' staves… Well, there's something wrong _somewhere_. Damn it all."

"But you still call yourself a templar," he says, more out of curiosity than anything else. She had, after all, saluted him when they first met at the war table, recognising him as a Knight-Commander and giving him the respect due to him from a Knight-Lieutenant, and she still wears a templar's standard issue equipment. Whatever her problems with the Order, she has clearly not cast it off completely.

"Of course," she says. "I took a vow to the Order. Several vows. I won't leave it behind just because of the state that it's in now."

"Do you truly believe that?" he asks, again mostly out of curiosity.

Ser Joanna looks at him. There's a pained look on her face.

"I try to," she admits.

Shortly afterwards, she takes her leave, and Cullen is left with a great deal to contemplate for the rest of the day—and much further beyond that.


End file.
